Efforts of an Imp

Stiletto – On Ice
By Martin Ough Dealy

The winter had been very hard. Especially on the central Canadian Prairies where the scene was just a white out with no clear horizon. The snow in places was over 5 feet deep with an icy crust that could almost withstand the weight of the man trudging along by himself without snowshoes. But often the ice gave way and he’d then sink to his knees in the softer snow below. The strong westerly wind did not help him either as the route he was taking was straight into it.
There was no landmark to help him. The bleak land was just flat. But with the aid of an old-fashioned army compass he left behind a roughly straight line of deep footprints with sometimes a bigger hole where he had fallen and scrabbled to get up again. He knew where he was going and headed with grim determination towards the Police car waiting for him the highway.
At last he reached the car and got in. He gulped down a cup of hot coffee to revive himself, and then radioed the results of his search. He asked for an ambulance and help to recover the body he’d discovered frozen solid lying on the bank of the icebound lake some 550 meters to the east of the road.
The corpse was stiff as a board, and it took a lot of effort by the policeman and the two red cross men to free it from the ground and carry it, without the need for a stretcher, to the waiting ambulance. It was still frozen solid by the time they reached the town morgue. They put the body onto a waiting gurney and hauled it into the morgue where they transferred it into a vacant slot in the refrigerated chamber. They set the temperature hoping that the thawing process could be completed next day.
The pathologist’ s report was that the man had not died of the cold. His corpse showed a single stab wound in the solar plexus with an upwards, expert thrust to the heart. The blade of the weapon was described as narrow with very sharp cutting edges, quite thin, very pointed, and about 9 inches long. It had been jiggled about after entry to achieve massive wounding of the heart and aorta. Nevertheless, it left a narrow exit in the now watery flesh. Things had been made difficult for the pathologist because the thawed corpse had flooded everything on the autopsy table with blood and water.
The policeman was adamant that he had searched the place where he had found the man but found nothing. His irate sergeant bawled him out for being derelict in his duty and sent him back with a squad to search the location again especially for the weapon. This was on the third day after the discovery and more snow had fallen. Undeterred the squad made a more diligent search but discovered nothing except for the glove missing from the right hand of the corpse. There was no weapon to be seen anywhere, not even under the ice of the frozen lake.
Later the corpse was identified as that of Jack Thorpe, one of the town’s prosperous businessmen. It was also established that he had been seen with another man arguing energetically in Jack’s car. The man he had been with was also identified as John Blickensop a well-known collector of old weapons. A large, powerful man John was quickly brought in for questioning. They soon established that his weapon collection included a wide variety of guns and knives of all sorts. He also had several toy lead soldiers. A thorough examination of his knife collection however established that none of them matched the description of the one that had killed Jack. John’s collection specialized in knives of oriental/Asian origin like Kukris, Kris and hatchets. His meticulous catalogue of the collection showed nothing was missing.
Apart from the quarrel between the two men the Police could not find any motive for John wanting to kill Jack. Without any sign of the weapon that could connect him to the crime they had no case and so they released John with a caution to stay in town in case they needed to question him again.
Months later the police were no further forward except that they had found several moulds in the town dump. Most of these were for lead toy soldiers and weapons like old fashioned canon used by people who liked to play at war with toys to simulate battles. It took the leaden cops somewhile before they made the connection, but they did eventually bring John back for questioning. He admitted that the moulds had been his but he had thrown them out because they were worn out. Inspection by the police and an expert in the moulding of toy soldiers confirmed that the moulds really were worn out and useless.
However, the police had again become suspicious of John. They had released him with a further caution but went back to the town dump for a further search. This time they found another mould buried deep in the detritus.
It was the mirror image of a knife or dagger with a long slender blade and needle-like point, ideal as a stabbing weapon. The stiletto blade's narrow cross-section tapered gradually to a sharp point needle like tip to reduce friction upon entry, allowing the blade to penetrate deeply. The part of the mould for the blade was exactly 9 inches long.
John denied all knowledge of the mould and the police had nothing to link the mould directly to him…the outer case of the mould had some fingerprints on its surface, but these were so smudged and damaged as to be quite useless.
So once again the police had no real case for charging John and had to let him go. He remains free in the town to this day.
But in fact we know he was the killer….so how did he manage to murder Jack and leave no evidence to link him to the crime…especially no weapon?
Simply it was because he had used the mould to make a stiletto out of ice.

A Family Secret

Dad wrote to me every month from home in Mexico in the long years when I was at school in Jamaica. His letters were a vital link to everything that was “home” for me. They were, for the most part, just news of family and local events. Occasionally however there would be a piece of advice and even more occasionally a request. When I was confirmed on a voyage to leave Jamaica and head for England, he charged me with several requests, one of which was to visit Norman Ough In London.

My mother showed an unusual reluctance when I asked her who Norman was. She simply said that he was an eccentric cousin who lived in a garret in London and made model boats. Despite my persistence she would not say more.

Months later I arrived in England and became Private M Ough REME engaged for a term on HM service. By that time, I had contacted my grandmother in Devon. I asked her but she too was reluctant to say much about Norman except that she was his aunt and that he indeed made model boats and lived at 98 Charing Cross Road in London.
Later still I used one of my rare weekend leave passes to contact Norman. In those days soldiers on leave wore uniform. I did not realize that this was to be a problem and a mistake for me.
Norman lived on the top floor of a rather run-down Victorian tenement building with no lifts. I found it still showed the damage inflicted during the blitz and the only way to reach his top floor abode was to climb long flights of dimly lit stairs.

I banged on the door at the end of a rather careworn grubby stairway and was greeted by an unshaven, gaunt and shabbily dressed rather harassed middle-aged man. He was clearly taken aback when he saw me, and it took him a while before he recovered. I did not have any inkling what had caused his obvious reluctance to invite me in.
The meeting did not go at all well. A gormless youngster with no experience, I was tongue tied. I did not know how to cope with his rather hostile unwelcome. He too did not have much to say. He showed me round his tiny flat in in a most perfunctory way clearly wanting to get rid of me as soon as he could. I barely had the opportunity to pass on Dad’s greetings before I was shown the door.
Chastened by the experience I returned to barracks and wondering what I had done to upset him.
I discovered later that Norman upon leaving his Quaker school in Yorkshire, had refused to serve as a conscript in 1917 declaring himself to be a Conscientious Objector. He had been sentenced to imprisonment in Dartmoor Prison for an indeterminate period. He escaped whilst there and found his way to Torquay where he apparently relied for food and shelter secretly provided at great risk by his Aunt Ellenor, my grandmother’s eldest sister. He was recaptured eventually and returned to prison for the duration.
Norman brought great shame on his family. His father was serving at the time as a subaltern in the Home Reserve and two of his cousins (my mother’s brothers) lost their lives serving in the AIF in 1918 whilst he was still in prison.

Conscientious Objectors were much vilified then. Norman no doubt experienced the hatred and loathing in which society regarded Pacifists during WW1. His actions caused bitter quarrels within the family amidst accusations of cowardice and disloyalty. He was shunned especially by his father and grandfather for the remainder of their lives. It is little wonder that he became an eccentric recluse.
It is hardly surprising that he was so unwelcoming many years later when confronted by another family member in uniform. Hardly to be surprised also was the family desire to keep that affair secret.
Norman remained a Pacifist all his life despite public and family intolerance and the subsequent loneliness he suffered. To sustain his beliefs so steadfastly required more courage and perseverance even than that shown by those who served and were awarded medals for bravery.

It is time to recognize that Conscientious Objectors exhibited higher standards of civilized behaviour than any of the men of war.

I ALWAYS DRIVE WITH MY EYES SHUT!

Yes I do. And so do you!
Think about it. I blink every 4 seconds – that is about 15 times per minute, or over 20,000 times a day, depending on how long I stay awake.
Each blink lasts about a tenth of a second.
This means that for every minute I am awake I close my eyes for about 1.5 seconds. In one hour my eyes are closed for 90 seconds , which is a minute and a half!
But my blink rate varies, It goes up if I am reading, tired, texting or doing anything that needs concentration, like driving. So I can be blind for THREE MINUTES IN EVERY HOUR.
Imagine I am driving. In a 2 hour drive that means I have been blind to what is going on for SIX MINUTES!
The same applies to you….Just imagine you are driving AND texting at the same time……. Unsurprisingly the combination often spells disaster
Taken over a whole day 20000 blinks is MORE THAN HALF AN HOUR! No wonder my family accuses me of being half blind!

ART IS IN THE EYE OF THE BEHOLDER
New Zealand
Auckland art gallery;
Local eyes publicly
Enter an empty room
Walls blank like doom.

All but one in solitary,
Eyes find monstrosity,
Match box fixed mid wall,
Art? Not really at all

Paris

Pompidou stark exterior
Pipes encasing room superior
All walls blank nothing
Mid floor artist’s plaything

Large cube, clear plastic
Preserved calf corpse fantastic
Emerald eyes, golden feet.
Art? Forced retreat.

Devon

Military camp, huts so bare,
Cold recruits face icy care
Morning inspection dreads
Attention! Stand by your beds!

What’s wrong with your kit?
Sarge it ain’t orthogonal is it?
Startled angry silence
Yus t’aint square neither!

Mexico

Old City, volcanoes distant viewing
Popocateptl, Aztec chief mourning
Iztasihuatl Princess reclining
Deathly white tresses flowing

New Palacio de Bellas Artes
Stained glass curtain mimic
Mourning volcanoes' morning

LOST!
Promises, promises, that is all management gives us these days! Frankly I am sick of it, especially as they started their promises the very day we took an interest in their product.

You would have thought that in this day and age with all the progress with technology and the myriad of laws and legalese, codes of practice, codes of ethics, laws, regulations and heaven knows what, that things would be transparent and straight forward and that you could rely on people to do what they promised or at least could be held to their promises. But oh no. Even if you read the fine print, check that the sellers belong to the right professional associations and have the right credentials, employ a legion of lawyers and consultants and agents and other professionals, use the forms approved by the legal associations and/or the government ministries you just cannot be sure…. ever. It is a nightmare. You are bound to be caught out one way or another.

Even in a simple thing like a prank to make a point or a protest, one designed to remind the sellers of a promise and shame them into keeping it, things can go wrong and do. You are bound to lose something. Especially when the other side are graceless, dictatorial, and without a vestige of a sense of humour.

My total investment in the prank, apart from time amounted to $70:50 and was made up of two pots of different coloured paints, two cheap paint brushes, and old cotton sheet donated from the family lined cupboard, a large inflatable plastic container with two pumps and a supply of water.

My fellow conspirator and I sneaked out just after midnight on New Year’s eve with all our bits and set things up in the place where the promise was supposed to have been honoured. The operation had all been carefully rehearsed, reccce’d and prepared, so it only took about 5 minutes to complete the set up. Then off to bed to see what would happen.

Well, can you imagine my disappointment when I got up next day to inspect our efforts. There was nothing, absolutely nothing, to see for all the work we had done! I had brought my camera to record in daylight what we had built, but as I said there was nothing, everything was the same as it had been the previous day.

Someone had snitched on us and management had acted fast to prevent anyone being reminded again of a broken promise. They had confiscated everything!
Ah, but all was not lost…someone had been up earlier than me and had seen the prank and had photographed it:

So, the joke was seen and shared and there was some hilarity amongst at least some of the villagers.
But my pool has been confiscated and so my whole investment has been LOST!

THE QUASHING OF AN AMBITIOUS CAREER ON THE CIRCUS TRAPEZE

I saw the great Ringling Brothers/Barnham and Bailey Circus in May 1945. That was just 10 months after the disastrous fire that had destroyed most of the circus in 1944. The circus had travelled by train from the States to Mexico City to perform in one of the football stadiums as a three-ringer but without the traditional enormous tent. That had been lost in the fire.
The circus had recovered surprisingly well after the catastrophe. Remarkably it was able to put on a magnificent and traditional performance with lots of animals, clowns, amazing artistes. This was a rare and generous treat organized by my father for the family. It was a miracle he had been able to afford it during those difficult years at the end of WW2.
The high wire trapeze artists fascinated my ten-year-old mind. Working without a safety net at heights well over 50 feet above the ground, they seemed to spend most of the time just flying.
Becoming an expert on the trapeze seized my imagination. I was, at that time, learning to dive and had experienced the sensation of hurtling through the air in free fall. Having seen the trapeze, I became obsessed with the idea of flying.
I was determined on achieving that dream - somehow ……. Back home I tried various ideas. The first problem was how to get up off the ground onto something I could swing from.
As a Boy Scout I had acquired some very basic knotting skills, and in the mill where Dad worked, I had seen men using a pulley for lifting things. So, putting 2 and 2 together and making 5 I tied a pulley to a rafter, threaded a rope through the pulley and tied a small loop to one end, thinking that if I put my foot into the looped end and pulled on the other, I could easily lift myself up; just like the trapeze artistes in the circus.
Knowing nothing about physics and the principles behind pulley systems, I was about to receive a very rapid and painful lesson.
Pulling hard I just about lifted myself off the ground. I might have got to a safer height if I had kept both parts of the rope perfectly parallel and vertical and my body also but stiff as a board.
Well, that was impossible. My leg left the vertical to become a very effective lever and the harder I pulled the quicker it shot up tipping me backwards and upside down. I was not high enough to avoid being slammed onto the ground. I found myself floundering like a dying fish gasping for air. Every ounce of breath had been knocked out of my lungs… it was awful, it seemed an age before I recovered.
I concluded that a circus career was not for me. “Those amazing men on the flying trapeze. Who fly through the air with the greatest of ease!” could be admired but only at a distance and copied only in the safety of a seat with wings…….. and that led me to another dream career

An Obsession in June

It happens every June. Right in the middle of winter. It adds to the miseries of short days, generally cold weather, and my seasonal state of hibernation. It generates a feeling of being boxed in and apprehension. There is no escaping from the dictates of a remote, demanding and in the end, if you make any mistakes, unforgiving opponent.
It starts with a message, nowadays by email, telling you that your return is due THIS MONTH. Surely you can guess what return it is. It starts with the initials IRD which for me leads to Internally Repressed Dementia…… need I say more?
My immediate reaction is PANIC. These people can impose sanctions and penalties!
Have I kept our accounts up to date? Do I still have the certificates of taxes paid? Do I know and comprehend not just the basic legal and accounting requirements but all the changes that have been made to TAX LAW since last year? Have I all relevant records to prove that I obtained and spent my money legally? What about GST?????
Oh Lord, I have forgotten what that means surely not God Saves Taxpayers? And FIF? Could that mean Fancy Interesting Foods? Or FY? Maybe Fancy Yoga? And PAYE that can best interpreted as Personally Aggravated by Yearly Extortions. Why do they have to use so much unintelligible jargon and so many arcane acronyms? It’s like M-E-N on a door - what is that supposed to mean?
Then I confront the desktop I have been using without trepidation over the last few months.
Is the software up to date? Are last years’ files available and uncorrupted…? NIGHTMARE …. is the security system working? Is my machine protected from hidden hackers and spies? Have I backed everything up? What about the Internet? No one can do without that nowadays, but that too is laden with jargon and more acronyms AND POOR ENGLISH! What chance has an OAP (Old Agitated Person) like me of understanding it all and being reasonably confident that I can cope this year?
Memories of this time last year send me into a cold sweat. Can I still justify the numbers I put in my return then? What about the records for the last SEVEN YEARS? Do I still have them to show? (OBIAH - Oh Blow it all to Hades). I shall give this to a CA (which does mean Chartered ACCOUNTANT) to do.
Ah but wait.
I contacted an accountant and the first thing that I got was a request that I sign papers authorizing them to act on my behalf , but also that absolved them of all responsibility….so what was the point, especially as they were going to charge me an arm and a leg after I had completed three questionnaires and sent them all my records.
Well then again, they knew the law and the IRD and the dodges and the wrinkles and about GST and FIF and FY and all that IRD jazz and rigmarole. Besides they, unlike me, are obsessed, apparently joyfully, all year with the whole thing. So, yes, this year I will not be obsessed ……. let them do it!
Ah, BUT WAIT, the CA acts as tax agent…they work for the IRD! I really cannot escape this CATCH 22!

COLLECT - A Marble KING

My boyhood memories include playing marbles with friends and rivals in Mexico and Jamaica. After a while I became skilled enough to win a few and so graduated of course to collecting them. My first collection started when I began to win them in games during play time at school. The British/American school was set up for expatriate children whose parents worked for one of the many mining companies in the state of Hidalgo. The school occupied somewhat ancient buildings built of stone and mortar in an old mining company compound at "La Luz" in Pachuca, the state capital.

My collection was generally made up of old glass marbles that bore the scars of many battles. The bright colours inside these once beautiful balls were obscured by surfaces so worn by violent collisions as to be almost opaque. But I treasured them as passports to the prospects of more games. I rued the day I lost one to a better opponent or because it had been shattered to pieces in a game.

The style of game then was very simple. It was always played on a flat area of flat bare ground devoid of plants of any kind. The area at the school was large enough for perhaps four games to be going on at once. As each game was between up to 5 or 6 squabbling and excited young boys ( girls were NEVER ALLOWED!) the scene was generally chaotic.
Often the action was almost hidden in a cloud of dust, especially during the dry season.

The rules required a circle drawn in the dust generally with a stick or grubby finger. More or less in the middle of the circle was a small indentation large enough for a marble to fall into. About 6 feet or so away from the circle we drew a line from which to start the game. The aim was to get a marble to fall into the indentation on the first try. If you succeeded any marble that was lying inside the circle was yours. So there was theoretically a huge advantage in playing last on the first throw.

Before starting a contest the protagonists agreed how many marbles each would start with. Generally it was two. A higher number meant that payers risked more of their collection. One marble was always your "king" marble . The remainder were ordinary glass ones and not nearly so valuable.. You had to remember which marbles were yours by the size and colour.

Hitting the indentation first time was very difficult to accomplish and was rarely achieved. More often as each boy took a turn the marbles would land in the circle or outside it. Once each boy had played a round and had one marble somewhere on the ground the next turn would be played and you had the choice of trying again to get your next marble into the central indentation or having a go at knocking an opponent's marble out of the circle. If you achieved that you won that marble and had another turn, playing from the position where you marble ended up. If your marble failed to hit another or ended up out side the circle you gave way to the next player. The marble used to knock an opponent out could be an ordinary one or your "king" marble.

The "king" marble was one's best marble, usually a large heavy one. The best kind were not made of glass at all but were rather large steel balls, the sort found in ball bearings. The only rule as to size was that the steel marbles could not be bigger than the biggest glass marble being used for the game.

My "king" was my pride and joy and a veteran of many battles. Once in play it was treated like any other marble on the ground and if knocked out of the dusty circle became that players property. But my veteran was heavy and about half an inch in diameter, so even if hit by another, it was difficult to move far. So it survived many games and remained a long time in my possession.

But inevitably someone came along with better skill or better luck than I , and won it from me. That was a black day and it took me a long time to find a replacement as good. It was like loosing an old friend!

But whilst I owned my "king" I won and lost many marbles. My battered collection reflected my success or lack of it as the number in my bag varied each time I played. I suppose on average I had about 20. They came in all sorts of colours and patterns. But I had no particular desire to collect marbles of a certain type. My aim was simply to make my collection as large as possible.

Apart from trying to win marbles at games, there was the alternative of exchanging them. This was possible when I acquired a particularly pretty marble of good size and as near new as possible. I could then barter it for two or more battered or less pretty ones and so increase my collection. Of course one could buy new marbles, but that really was the last resort as it signalled a lack of success in the field of play. Far better to win marbles from your rivals than having to spend pocket money!

i must admit that I was never consistently successful. I never quite developed the skill needed to ensure that I won more times than I lost.

The technique for propelling the "king" required curling the fore finger round it with the thumb hard up behind , then flicking hard with the thumb. You could use your arm whilst flicking the marble to send it further. This sounds easy to do but remember you had to aim the marble and judge the distance to the target accurately to have any hope of success. It was much easier if your target was close of course but whatever the distance a lot of practice and skill was needed to win.

If you succeeded in hitting an opponents marble you had another turn until you missed or your "king" bounced out of the circle. Then it was a rival's turn to play. The game ended when someone lost all the marbles started with, or the end of the playtime break was rung or a teacher lost patience with the dust or noise of quarrelsome boys.

When marble-mania was at its height during school term I always carried perhaps half a dozen marbles in my trouser pockets. But once I made the mistake of bringing to school my whole collection in a rather old clothe bag. I don't remember why I did this, perhaps I was trying to show it off.....anyhow I did and put it into my old fashioned desk with the hinged top.

Just before the lesson ended for morning break, for some stupid reason I took the bag out again and disaster struck. The bag split open and my treasured collection scattered to the four corners of the class room. Mayhem is a relatively inadequate word to describe the result.There was no denying my responsibility for the interruption and I was torn between trying to respond to a very irate teacher and rescuing my scattered collection from class mates bent on making the most of the opportunity to increase the size of theirs. Needless to say the teacher prevailed. She gave me no chance to rescue any part of the collection and proceeded to remind me that marbles were in the long list of items banned from the school room. By the time she had finished telling me off and giving me detention, most of the collection had somehow disappeared and I was left to pick up the very few survivors. I suppose I rescued 3 or 4 and these did not include my prized "king".

That was a sorry day indeed. One which more appropriately could have ended with a collect for my collection.

LOADED WITH MAD THOUGHTS AND THE FUMES OF A HEAVENLY EARTH
(or Lode with a d = Loded)

I am cheating really. I am supposed to be writing something based on the trigger word loaded, but nobody in the group stipulated how that word was spelt so I have added the d. You see I know a little about lodes and feel that it might be a more interesting to think outside the box. Otherwise "loaded" leads to thoughts about alcohol, drugs, IT if you are on the up or the down, donkeys, horses, mules, trucks , ships and other trains of thought.

So lode with a d is my train. In a mundane way that can lead to thoughts of gold and silver, mother, tin and so on. But thinking outside the box again.... where can I go with the d? ...ah yes, there is a sort of connection between lode and something hard to get spelt beginning with the d at the end of my train.....

What about deuterium? What is that you say? Well it's a relatively rare form of hydrogen, much prized by makers of bombs and those trying to emulate the sun's ability to produce endless amounts of energy.

And the lode? Well think of the enormous quantities of water in the world's oceans and the rivers and lakes that abound. Although the proportion is small, in reality there are amounts of deuterium you can count in millions of tonnes of heavy water (water made with deuterium) available for us to use.

So there you go:

sea = lode
d= deuterium
sea plus deuterium = loaded QED
I rest my case.
Loded = loaded

Mad thoughts generated in an idle moment ........ lead to nowhere.
but might be seen as loaded with entertainment

And with apologies to Robert Service:

Of malt whisky I am a lover,
To drink deep is my delight;
If t’were not for the hangover,
I’d get me loaded every night.
I’d then unload with shouts and laughter,
If it were not for the morning after.

For though to soberness I am given,
To it a thought I have often thunk
The nearest that is earth to heaven is to
To upload and get sublimely drunk

FEAR IN A MANILA STORM

Storm warnings were out in Manila that morning. The approaching typhoon was expected to hit in the mid-afternoon.

The warning was not high on my priorities that day. I’d had started with an early business appointment, and barely noticed that the usual hot weather had become very humid and still. There was not a breath of air to provide relief. Shortly after a brief lunch my friend warned that things could get rapidly worse. I left early to grab a taxi back. It was then that things started to get difficult. The streets were crowded with the usual chaos of Manila traffic, buses, truck, bicycles, taxis, jeepnies pedestrians, three wheeled bejaks, tuk tuk . But all in a hurry and not a taxi to be found. I walked about a mile before a battered and very worn old taxi I was now covered in sweat, aggravated by the confines of a totally unsuitable suit and a heavy briefcase.

Just as I agreed a price with the driver, the heavens opened with very heavy rain and menacing squally gusts of wind. Heading towards the hotel it seemed only minutes before the streets started to flood and the water reached the floor of the taxi. How the driver managed to see through the curtains of rain and find a way through the traffic was a miracle. Gradually things got worse until the taxi stalled with water now over the seats. Very wet and faced with no choice I got out and started the long walk to the hotel still over 2 miles away. Soaked, bedraggled and wading through flood water now well over a meter dep in places, I struggled off in the general direction of the hotel.

It was then that fear struck.

It was not so much the wind, flying debris, the heavy rain, or the gloom - these were bad enough. No, the problem was that not all manholes in Manila had covers and these could be anywhere. The flood water was not just pouring down into storm drains through openings protected by grids. It was being sucked into open manholes and it was impossible to see these until it was almost too late. The only clue was the feeling of being sucked along by a strong current and whirlpools where the flood water disappeared. Twice I felt the sucking power of the water rushing into drains and desperately struggled to avoid a one-way dive into the depths. I lost my footing once and fell into the filthy water but recovered just in time to get onto a footpath still covered by flood water and discernible only by feeling my way.

I counted myself very lucky to reach sanctuary after nearly an hour of terror fed by a vivid imagination. Somehow, my briefcase survived!

THE EYES HAD IT ALL ON A SUMMER DAY

It was a lovely day. Rural Hampshire was at its best. Trees with full canopies of green and crops ripening yellow in the fields framed the winding road. The mistiness of the air typical of England in the summer season added to the joy of anticipation.

My old Vincent motorcycle was the key to my independence. With almost unfettered entry to the roads and the theoretical ability to go where I liked I soon got away from the dreariness of the training camp. I headed south towards the coast intending to follow a circuitous route along country lanes and “B” roads back to the mess via a convenient inn or two.
Protective gear in those days was not an obligatory requirement. There was no rule saying that you must wear a helmet or goggles or skid proof leather overalls and boots. I did pay some heed to common sense and wore gauntlets for my hands in addition to light clothing suitable for a hot dry day. I relied on my spectacles for eye protection and heavy shoes to cover my feet. In the event of rain I had a raincoat in my saddle bag with a leather helmet. Being youthful and optimistic I reckoned that no harm could possibly come my way....accidents happened to other people. I was invulnerable!

In 1954 the age of the all pervasive motorways and intrusive mass car ownership was still nearly 20 years away. Traffic on England’s rural roads was still light. I enjoyed the virtually empty road and sped along without a care, the wind very literally in my hair. Of course midges and other swarming flies were also out enjoying the summer air, so I was careful to keep my mouth shut.

Suddenly I was aware of a dark buzzing object trapped behind the left lens of my glasses. I had placed too much faith in my spectacles for protection. Needing both hands on the handle bar controls to stop the bike I struggled with it in a literally blind panic. I could not take my spectacles off until I was lying flailing in the ditch. That gave the bee ample time to apply its rear end to my exposed flesh. It flew away when I finally pulled my spectacles off. It left its pulsating sting inserted just under my left eyebrow. It must have gone off to expire shortly after. But my own difficulties destroyed any feelings of sympathy or sadness I might have had at the plight of that wretched insect.

Oh the pain of it! It really stung and very soon my left eye had closed with the swelling that rapidly welled up and spread around my nose to start affecting the remaining eye.
I had no choice but to find a medical facility quickly. Fortunately help was close by and I got there just before I was completely blinded by the swollen flesh that had now made my face look like a punctured football. Fortunately I could not appreciate the effect my appearance had on those who saw me!

But the nurses were very helpful and quick to administer appropriate aid. An anti-histamine injection restored me to some semblance of sanity and I was soon able to return to barracks. Of course I did not receive much sympathy from my fellow trainees. They, to a man, thought it all very funny, making the experience doubly painful. The throbbing physical discomfort was nothing as bad as that of my embarrassment and loss of dignity.

MY EFFORTS HAVE BEEN REWARDED

My grandmother’s box came into my possession shortly after her death in 1969. I had known of its existence because it had been part of a ritual whenever I went to visit her. But I had never imagined that she thought I should have it as I was never allowed to get close to her when she was alive.

Not that I even knew her that well. I first met her in 1952 when I was 17 and she was already 81. She was living then in a cottage in Sidmouth which doubled as a B&B and she was the only permanent “guest”. How she, a lady brought up in the strictest Victorian traditions ended up in that place is a another and much longer long story. Suffice to say that it was there that I visited her during the remaining 18 years of her long life. I suppose that I saw her on no more than a total of perhaps 20 times and then only at the most for just a few days.
Occasionally she would invite me into her room for a cup of tea and a look through the contents of her box. There were photograph albums, autograph books, a collection of Chinese coins, Australian Army badges, medals, rank insignia and AIF uniform patches, old school magazines from Stonyhurst College and others of the “Yellow Dragon” the school magazine of Queens College in Hong Kong. There was much else besides, mainly of Chinese or French origin, all an intriguing collection of memorabilia and souvenirs spanning the 24 years she lived in Hong Kong and Australia. It was no ordinary collection and it provided her with much she could have talked about. Significantly there was nothing in the collection after 1924. It was as if her interest in life had been suspended after the fateful years following the end of WW1.

The box resided under her bed and would be dragged out and opened for me to look through. But she rarely talked about the contents. Most of the time she left me to ask questions. It quickly became clear that its contents evoked memories of her happiest period in life. Most of the contents were about her two boys both of whom had done well at school and university and who had very bright futures ahead of them. That is until WW1. They were lost both in the last year of the war. A tragedy from which she never really recovered.

Anyway, the box came to me at another time of family upheaval when we were about to emigrate to New Zealand. So it was just put on one side with all the other boxes to be shipped. It surfaced again after we had set up home in Howick, but that was a busy time. I really did not look at the box again until much later in the early 1990’s. It was at the time that the Internet was becoming established, and I had become interested in setting up a business using the new technology. This meant setting up a website.

At about the same time I rediscovered the contents of Grandmother’s box. I realized that it contained much about family history that was in danger of being forgotten. Unsurprisingly I had the idea of using the Internet to record it and make it available to a family still spread all over the place. I also thought such a website might spark an interest in younger members of the family and appeal to a wider audience.

The box provided the inspiration for the family website www.family-ough.co.nz which is still available to anyone interested and has grown to over many pages of stories and legends about a now very extended family.

Establishing and keeping the website up to date has produced much blood sweat and tears. The effort involved hours spent on the keyboard and staring at the computer screen, often in a state of utter frustration, loss of temper and colourful language swearing to give up the project. I made many false starts especially at the beginning as the software I used was still buggy and unreliable.
Eventually I found a way to produce a stable website and a basis for making the contents of the box available to the wider audience available through the Internet. Over the subsequent years, the web site has been expanded to include the memoires of other family members, and many stories and legends. It includes over 1000 translated letters of a French relative written to his wife from the trenches whilst he served in the French Army through all four years of WW1 surviving several battles including Verdun. Another section includes the memoires of another relative whose husband survived as PoW under the Japanese on the Burma Railroad during WW2.Yet another section contains stories about family members in Australia, Mexico, Brunei, Malaysia and Jamaica.
The rewards have been worth the effort especially most recently. Four years ago I received an invitation from an American lady who had used the site. I was asked to talk to public audiences in Hong Kong about the family history in old Colonial Times and my grandmother’s life on the Peak.

More recently still has been the revelation that my father’s first cousin in Canada, a famous artist, had secretly married a man she told her family was a Belgium Army Officer. The marriage was in 1934 and the couplw had a son whom she later disinherited. She never knew that she had been a grandmother to four grandchildren. The eldest of her grandchildren has recently been in contact with me and has helped to explain family secrets and scandals that had hitherto been locked away as skeletons in dark cupboards. He had made the contact with me through yet another hitherto undiscovered cousin in Cornwall! An extra ordinary coincidence is that he too went through Sandhurst and served in the same company I did, although some 30 years later!

I must wonder what else has yet to be revealed through the web site. I am convinced that there is more to come, and the effort has so far been really rewarding!

WHAT IS IN A NAME?

You may well ask!
My first name is Martin, spelt M-a-r-t-i-n, pronounced Martin. Really simple and easy to remember would you not agree??

Now my family name is Ough spelt O-u-g-h and pronounced Ough as in though….you know, O.
It is not off as in cough, but O as in though,
It is not auw as in ought or bought or brought, or fought nor even as in dreadnaught,
Catch a brougham and call me oooooo at your peril!
Please do not use uff as in rough
It is not uawghgh as in clough,
And Ock as in hough is positively demeaning.
Nor is it pronounced ouw as in bough. Nor as in doughty or in drought
Please do not try my patience with ow as in plough
It is insulting me to name me och or okkk as in lough
It is not uffff as in rough and tough . You might get close with ow as in Slough but uff is just not good enough.
Nor is uuuh as in Edinburough
It is certainly not oooge as some have tried
It is just simply OOOOO as in ough that is O as in dough.
Please, can you remember that? It is really quite simple, ….. just O!
Now some lesser mortals have tried ouch, ooch, urrrrgh, and errrrrr but these pronunciations simply won’t do. Such people are beyond the pale and would do better by remembering that Ough is O as in though! Really it is as easy as that…..

Now my old man worked in an old fashioned mining company in Mexico. They used a telephone system that required the caller to crank a handle to get the operator, who then plugged the connection and cranked another handle that rang a bell in the office of the callee. The tradition was for the responder to say his surname and the caller then to confirm by saying his own. And in the old man’s case you would get this inane conversation when he called a man called Watt. “watt” here…followed by “ Ough” or O as in though here. Watt….O…..O! OK then What’s the problem…..and so on.
Tired of the constant mispronunciation of my name I thought that adopting my mother’s maiden name would be an answer and so I became Martin Ough ( as in Bough) Dealy . But things really did not get much better as I became either Deary or Deadly or Deathly or Dreary and worse still were the combinations like Och Deadly and Ow Dreary!

O (spelt Ough) Death where is thy sting?!!!!!!

Oh and by the way the following sentence has 7 different ways of pronouncing Ough: “A rough-headed dough-faced ploughman strode coughing and hiccoughing through the streets of Scarborough.”

Two more are as in hough ( as I hock) to hamstring and brougham as in brooooam. Then there is anchoring a dreadnought in a lough, so there are at least 11 ways but only one correct way of saying the surname….O as in though! `

The name is said to have originated in Cornwall and may have come from the French for water…eau…

So there is a lot of watts in a name.

Works of Art

Paris - The Pompidou Centre

Encased in its ventilation entrails the centre may have been avant guard when built, but it is no work of art. But I had high hopes of seeing some art there as an exhibition had been widely advertised as worth viewing.

So I wandered in and wondered what on earth had inspired the people whose exhibits were on show.

Two exhibits I saw will serve to illustrate my dilemma.

The first was set in the centre of the floor of an otherwise empty room. It was the wreck of a car that was mangled in some ghastly accident, salvaged and conceived of as piece of art. I could, I suppose admire the work done to get the twisted metal into the centre as it must have taken some doing, but that was the limit of my appreciation.

The second exhibit was a long tank. This occupied another otherwise empty space. The strong odour of chemicals was an inescapable clue as to the nature of the clear liquid in the tank. Floating in it was a very dead bull calf. The artist had embellished the genitals in red. That appeared to be all that was needed to turn a macabre yet natural thing into something that apparently counted as a work of art.

I could not see the point of seeing any more so I made a quick escape.

The Louvre

I sought solace and sanity in the Louvre. There I lost myself in a wonderful collection of manmade works. I was overwhelmed by the sheer quantity and quality of what there was. Now this was “art” that I could understand. That is, I appreciated what I was able to see for the most part. But I was confused, totally at sea and finally unappreciative of many of the abstract exhibits.

I also remain puzzled by the claim that Leonardo da Vinci’s portrait of “Mona Lisa” as being the most beautiful painting ever produced. I can understand Leonardo’s inspiration and his skill in translating a beautiful living face into a portrait of similar beauty. But how to compare that with so many other extraordinarily beautiful paintings and still claim that da Vinci’s was the best ever done?

Mind you I was having difficulty in getting near enough to Mona to really study the work. At best I got to within about three yards of her and yet still had to peer over and between the heads of the crowd in front of me. So my memory of that one viewing was somewhat marred by frustration. Since then I have looked at reproductions of the Mona Lisa, but they never have done her justice or convinced me of the painting’s claim to fame.

Rome - The Cistine Chapel

It was a long walk through the grounds of the Vatican to the Chapel. That and the humidity of a hot Roman summer’s day made me very short tempered. My foul mood was not helped by having to queue up to get into the Chapel and contend with the crowd of ill mannered people I was with.

After a lot of pushing and shoving the group finally reached the narrow entrance into the chapel. Getting through was difficult as the chapel was full of people who could not move because the exit at the other end was also clogged.

Tempers were not improved by the Vatican officials who kept loudly asking for “silencio” and making so much noise themselves that they only added to the confusion.

Still, I did manage to get in. Finally able to I looked up at the ceiling and the walls. It was all worth the effort. The scenes depicted were magnificent, overwhelming and simply beautiful. Truly works of art and to my simplistic mind, understandable and inspiring.

Auckland – The City Art Gallery

Another day another advertisement announcing a “must see exhibition” of local art works.

Once bitten twice shy, I was somewhat reluctant to go, but curiosity proved the stronger inclination. So off I went to pay an exorbitant entry fee and enter the gallery.

I followed the signs through an empty corridor. The lack of people and echoing emptiness did not auger well to my mind, but on I went until I found the sign welcoming me to the exhibition “of the year”. The Council official directed me to the exhibits in the four rooms on the upper floor.

I found the first room. It was empty. There was nothing on the floor apart from a bench and the walls and ceiling all appeared to be just blank planes of a nondescript grey hue.

Then I spotted placed bang in the centre of the wall opposite an open box of matches. It was sitting on a tiny transparent shelf that was so small as to make the box appear to be floating just off the wall. And that was it……the tiny card next to the box gave the artist’s name, described the material of the box as being “wood with chemicals”. This was a concession I suppose to the fact that there were matches in the box.

Oh, and there was also a date. I imagine that was to record when the artist had felt so inspired as to think his creation could be seen as artistic or symbolic or something. Anyhow, the author of this effort had convinced the gallery somehow that his exhibit was really something out of the ordinary. I dare say it was a curious piece but artistic it was not!

The next room contained works by Maori artisans in the form of feather cloaks, carvings and items made from woven flax. Now these were something which I could appreciate and understand. They were the result of the traditional skills applied with patience, care and an eye for form, compatible colours and line. These more than made up for the crass pretension of the previous room and really merited description as works of art.

Auckland – A Garden

It has been an occasional source of annoyance. It insists on producing those typically long fronds that after a few weeks turn brown, became limp and gradually subside into hanging rubbish that has eventually to be removed and mulched. Another chore in the garden! The old punga tree has been growing there for so long that I have just taken it for granted.

That was until a few mornings ago.

I happened to be up early and saw that it had grown high enough to start intruding into the far view of the estuary and the hills beyond. Suddenly I realized that I was looking at something extraordinary. A new frond had placed itself right where I could see the gradual forming and unrolling typical of the fern species. Not only the main stem but also every individual branch, ended like a little balled fist. Every stem was covered with tiny buds of similar shaped nascent growth placed precisely along its length.

Since then I have been fascinated by the gradual unfurling of each stem and the spread of the soft green canopy. The process is not over yet, but in itself has been a thing of beauty, bringing each day something new and perfect.

Now that is a work of art and is perfect because it is untouched by human hand.

The photos above are of the noisy neighbour and La Casa Nueva with its view of Pachuca where we lived right beside the mill. The distant views of Pachuca where taken in 1957 and 2009 and show how much the place had grown and spread to the south of te Loreto Mill.

NOISY NEIGHBOURS

Pachuca de Soto has been a silver mining center for over 5 centuries. At 8000 feet the town nestles on the edge of the Valley of Mexico in the rain shadow of the Sierra de Pachuca part of the Sierra Madre Oriental. The tops of the mountain range provide a defining boundary to the north, and rise to over 10000 feet making Pachuca a windy, dusty and dry place. It was also very noisy.
The Loreto mill was the largest silver ore processing plant in the world and occupied perhaps 10 acres of land. It was deliberately located on the mountain’s slopes to take advantage of gravity. This helped the flow downhill of the ore as it was processed through the mill. The ore, brought up out of the underground mines in large metal skips was dumped into huge bins. From these it was transported on belts to enormous stone crushers, thence to rotating mills filled with either balls or rods to crush the ore still further into a fine powder, and then conveyed as a slurry into tanks and filters and finally as solid ingots from a furnace and refinery.

The place was serviced by trucks, trains, lifts, steam engines, air compressors and much other machinery. Each machine made its own distinctive noise. In the cacophony you could hear crashing, banging, roaring, rattling, hammering, tapping, gurgling, stamping, whirring, whining, squeaking, hissing and much else besides. Noise levels were so high that men working in the mill used buzzers, sirens and even whistled to communicate; all of which added yet another noise to the bedlam that went on without stop all day and all night one way or another.
Loreto was one of our many noisy neighbours. We lived on the other side of the giant stone wall that surrounded the mill. Our home ,“La Casa Nueva”, despite its name, must have been nearly 100 years old, was located right next to the huge Symonds ore crushers. Nearby also was the steel ball store for the ball mills into which every so often a load of new ones would be dumped from a truck on the road above the house into a wooden chute that ended in the store. The noise of thousands of these fist sized steel balls crashing down the chute was indescribable and it often happened without any warning.

The house had a corrugated tin roof like so many of the other buildings owned by the mine company. Ours was painted red and was high enough to just be higher than the stone retaining wall behind the house that shored up the road above. This unpaved, metaled road started at the gates of the mill below the house and wound steeply up the hill in two bends skirting the compound where we lived on its way to the San Juan mine head frame above us and the mines further up the mountain to the north. The noise of large trucks grinding their way up this road was a familiar one, so was the blasting of the horns to warn others of their presence.

Our roof was a much scarred veteran of its many years . Local kids living in the village above us took occasional but great delight in hurling large stones and pebbles onto the roof. These would land and make the house rattle like a drum. It seemed to happen most often when the guard in the San Juan Mine was either absent from his post or asleep.
But the greatest noise of all was infrequent. It occurred either when there was a power cut or when the miners went on strike and everything had to be shut down. It came as a total silence that was most startling. It was then that a dropping pin would be our noisiest neighbour.

Picture, Hair/hare/heir, Mystery, and Mathematics

Oh gosh! Another blank page to fill and no inspiration.
Actually, that is not quite true, thankfully.

After presenting my last eccentric effort I found an old family copy of the Complete Nonsense and that has provided some ideas. But they too are nonsense really and are offered with apologies to Edward Lear but also with my thanks to him for helping me out of a no exit.

Indulge me please and see what you can find that is mine and that is his….

There was a young person of Crete,
Whose toilette was far from complete,
She dressed in a sack, spickle-speckled with black,
That ombliferous person of Crete (LEAR)

There was an old man in a picture.
He wanted to make it a fixture.
He rushed over there, only returning to where
He established he really was in the picture. MOD

There was an old man of Peru,
Who never knew what he should do;
So he tore off his hair, and behaved like a bear,
That intrinsic old man of Peru. (LEAR)

A funny old bird is a pelican.
His beak can hold more than his belican.
Food for a week, He can hold in his beak,
But I don't know how the helican. MERRITT

A girl was keen on things mysterious,
So much that she became hysterious.
Rushing to catch a pig in a poke, she treated it all as a joke
And continued to indulge herself in things hilarious. MOD

A young man excelled at mathematics,
But only when at home in the attics.
He used a great pencil, instead of a stencil,
To record his research in semantics. MOD

This man was proud of his great head of hair,
He wanted to pass it to his young son and heir,
But the thought of cutting it short,
Made him offer his heir the hair on the head of the hare. (MOD)

There was an old person whose habits,
Induced him to feed upon rabbits.
When he had eaten eighteen, he turned perfectly green,
Upon which he relinquished his habit for rabbit. LEAR DEALY

There was an old person of Mold,
Who shrank from sensations of cold.
So he purchased some hares, some hair, and some fluffs,
And wrapped himself up from the cold. LEAR DEALY

MAGICAL

The writer’s nightmare is a blank sheet of paper and no ideas.

I have been staring at this one called “Magical” for days without inspiration other than jumbled thoughts and vague notions. Nothing has gelled into something I can put on paper. Damn, the magic is just not working, and my despondent dream has continued to the point where I am running out of time and the mare of the night refuses to be tamed.

Go for a walk my good lady keeps telling me and so I have.

It really was magic to Walk in solitude with just the company of birds, cicadas, and the sound of the fast-flowing river; and then then recall how magical it is to:

• Hear for the first time the cries of first and second born daughters; and then,
• Watch them grow, mature, achieve and repeat the cycles of life.
• Savour Minnie’s cooking- pastes that Cornishmen dream of tostadas to suit the most fastidious Mexican, pastas to satisfy any hungry Italian and Beef and Yorkshire pudding for a ravenous Mexican Pom;
• Swim at dawn or the early evening off a tropical beach with pure white sands and into the clear, warm, gently lapping waters of the Caribbean Sea.
• Hear the clapping that comes with the making of the traditional corn tortilla and the grinding of the granite metate.
• Smell the aromas of a Mexican market; better still-
• Linger over the tastes of a chalupa, or an enchilada, or a taco, or a huarache, or a tamale, or huevos rancheros. Anyone of these would certainly serve as an entrée to a magical paradise! Then
• Dive into the pristine offshore waters of the Java Sea and
• Explore the remains of an old cargo ship that still sits on the sand in clean water with only the top of its mast conveniently above the ocean surface to cling to.
• See the distant horizon from a jungle mountain peak in the thin upper reaches of the atmosphere.
• Fly solo for the first time and reach the solid Malaysian earth in one piece without damaging self, the Tiger Moth, or anything else. Then later
• Loop the loop in clear skies high above the Yorkshire moors blooming with summer colours.
• Ride a Vincent Black Shadow as fast as it will go down a straight road before being forced to shut the throttle and pull up shaking with exhilaration and …... fear.
• Climb the steps of the restored Temple of Borobudur to the highest stupas and the goal of enlightenment and Nirvana.
• Stare at the black sky on a moonless night and wonder about things in the cosmos beyond understanding.
• Wander around the galleries of the Tate or the National or Museo del Prado and get lost in the magic of the paintings;
• Gaze at the full moon and wonder where next will man leave footprints on an alien surface.
• Then Say goodbye to a dying friend about to discover the mysteries of the Great Beyond.
• And be enchanted by so much else on the earth whilst anticipating the magic that awaits oneself beyond the River Styx.

GONE! - A True Story

Roxas Boulevard skirts Manila Bay and the Holiday Inn looks out over it towards the west. From your room, If you are lucky, you may see the incomparable beauty of a tropical sunset and you can forget the polluted sprawl of modern Manila behind you. But you have to ignore what is floating on the surface of the sea close to shore and concentrate on the horizon to really enjoy the scene of this erstwhile tropical paradise

If you follow the Boulevard to the north, you will come eventually to Old Manila and the ruins of its old Spanish fort La Forteleza de Santiago. It is on the shore of the River Pasig. But these ruins are now surrounded by slums and shanty towns, places to be avoided if you value your skin and wallet.

The receptionist had told me on my earlier arrival that day that I could find a good pizza restaurant near the fort. I had come in from the Nino Aquino International Airport after the 12 hour flight from Auckland and was ravenously hungry. So I set out to look for it.

There are several ways of getting about in Manila. You can walk, but that in the tropical heat is an uncomfortable business at best, and at worst, risky, because the pavements are mostly crowded by pedestrians who seem hell bent on pushing you into the path of the frantic, uncontrolled traffic of vehicles driven by crazy drivers.
For a few centavos you can also hop onto one of the ubiquitous Jeepneys. These are strange individual adaptations of the thousands of jeeps left behind by the Americans after the end of WW2. Not one Jeepney looks like any other and if you are a stranger in town you really have to take pot luck as to where it will take you as there are few decipherable indicators of routes taken on any Jeepney. Besides that these conveyances have been built to accommodate up to a dozen Filipinos who are quite small people. A galumphing foreigner like me finds it hard to get enough space to sit let alone handholds to hang onto..

The next possibility is to grab a local taxi. The only advantage of these lethal rattle traps over the Jeepney is that you can have the whole thing to yourself. But they are nearly always clapped out very old small cars, with apologies for springs, smoky engines with useless exhausts and enough holes in the rusting body work to ensure the asphyxiation of anyone foolhardy or desperate enough to climb aboard.

I had been warned NEVER to use a local taxi.

But taxis provided by the hotel are a better bet. These cars are generally in a reasonable state of repair, have meters that work and drivers that can be trusted…… more or less and who speak at least a little English. So I chose one of these to get to the restaurant.

Thankfully, the driver understood English and knew the restaurant I was heading for…he also had a set price for the trip. So there was no need to haggle. But he was not prepared to wait to take me home unless I paid him three times the set price for the single outward trip. I had either to get a local taxi to get home, hop on a jeepney or walk. Being mean minded, unwilling to be blackmailed and just plain stupid I decided to try my luck for the return trip.

By the time I had finished the pizza it was dark and raining. There was no sign of the weather easing so I hailed a cruising local taxi on the lookout for custom. I ignored the hotel’s warning and was about to regret it bitterly.

I hopped into the back seat, but was too busy getting out of the rain to take much notice of the driver. By the time I started to haggle with him over the cost I realized I was dealing with just about the most villainous man I have ever seen….and I can tell you I have seen plenty!. But it was too late to get out, he had already started driving and by this time we were on our way, and anyway the rain was pouring even harder…if that was possible.

The meter did not work, of course. The driver spoke Tegalog and only a smattering of English. It took a lot of argument before he agreed to take me home for twice what the hotel taxi had cost. Needless to say that was daylight robbery, but then, you see, I really had run out of options.

The driver had been going fairly slowly through the voluminous traffic whilst we haggled, but once the price was agreed he stamped his foot on the throttle and we shot off in a cloud of exhaust smoke, half of which joined forces with the rain and came in through the holes under the back seat, the side doors and the cracked windows.
I immediately became apprehensive, not just because of the maniacal way we were weaving our way through the dimly seen traffic, but because the direction was wrong. Instead of heading south along the Boulevard he had turned eastwards and was driving along the edge of the river through parts of the Old Town I did not recognize. Further and further into the maze of the slums that lined the riverbanks we went.

Suddenly the driver turned the rattletrap off the road and shot into a small courtyard. Before I realized what was happening the backdoor on my side opened and I was pushed into the middle of the back seat by a large man. Another, equally burly Filipino, barged his way through the other side brandishing a rather large knife in front of my startled eyes and yelled at me in Tegalog. The driver joined in with more shouting. He reached under his seat and came up with a revolver which he pointed at me yelling even more loudly. There was no mistaking what they were after. That was made very clear by the first man who said in passable English. “Money”! Give us your money”.

By the time I gathered my wits together, we were barrelling through rain-soaked traffic again along another dark road. I had pulled my wallet out by then and offered the $100 or so in it saying that was all I had, apart from a credit card and some coins. They forced me to turn out all my pockets not believing I had nothing else to offer. The English speaker then spotted my wedding ring and tried to force it off but it was firmly stuck to me, leaving him angrier and more frustrated and me with a very sore finger.

After another 15 minutes or so of angry argument, and the loss of my watch, one of two thieves then shouted something in Tegalog to the driver, who slammed on the brakes. The two in the back seat then forced me out of the taxi, leaving me sitting on the pavement of a deserted unlit street in the rain and feeling relieved but very sorry for myself. The heavy wind had by that time become a gale, adding to my misery and confusion. The taxi then disappeared into the gloom in the inevitable cloud of smoke- Thankfully, never,. to be seen by me again. It had Gone with the wind…………

The Efforts of an Imp